DesktopLinux: Alternative Computing in Education

“Two years ago, my daughter, a high school freshman, was working
on her social studies project and she told me I had to go out and
buy Microsoft Office. At that time, I worked for Sun Microsystems
so I used StarOffice and insisted that my whole family use it. I
asked to see her homework assignment.

“The assignment looked as if it was a study guide written for
the school by Microsoft. The requirement was for the students to do
a presentation and on each page, they would use a function that was
built into Power Point.

“The first issue I had was that I did not believe that this
exercise helped my daughter learn social studies. The second issue
was that I don’t believe the school has any right telling the
students what software they had to use to prepare their homework
assignments. I wrote a letter to the school and met with the
administrators. The administrators assured me that it was not the
school’s policy to dictate what software a student used…”

Complete
Story